Spencerville (4 page)

He drove to the north side of town and found where Williams Street began off the county road. He pulled over, hesitated, then turned onto the suburban street.

Some of the stately old Victorians looked restored, some were rundown. As a child, he'd always marveled at this section of town, the big houses on small plots that he now realized were not small at all, the huge trees that formed a dark green tunnel in the summer, the fact that people could live so close together and see into one another's homes, and the luxury of two cars in every driveway. What had impressed, amused, and mystified him then was no longer impressive, amusing, or mystifying, of course. Childhood wonder and innocence were almost embarrassing in retrospect; but what kind of adult would you be without once having seen things through wide eyes?

The street was as quiet as he'd expected on a summer afternoon. A few kids rode by on bicycles, a woman pushed a baby carriage, a delivery van was stopped up the road and the driver was chatting with a woman at her door. It was a street of big front porches, a uniquely American phenomenon, as he'd discovered in his travels, though houses in America were not built that way any longer. Small children played on some of the porches, old people rocked. He was glad Annie lived on this street.

As he approached her house, something odd happened: His heart began thumping and his mouth went dry. The house was to his right, and before he realized it, he was passing it, and he pulled over. He noticed a beat-up station wagon parked in the driveway, and an older man was carrying a stepladder to the rear of the house. And there she was, just a glimpse of her as she turned away and disappeared around the back of the house with the old man. It was only a second or two, from fifty yards away, but he had no doubt it was her, and this instant recognition of her features, her stride, her bearing, astonished him.

He backed up and opened the car door, then stopped. How could he just show up at her door? But why not? What was wrong with the direct approach? Phoning her or dropping her a note was not what he'd pictured in his mind. He thought it was important that he should just ring her doorbell and say, "Hello, Annie," and let whatever happened happen, spontaneously and without rehearsal.

But what if she had company? What if her kids were home, or her husband? Why hadn't he thought of that likely possibility even once when he replayed this scene over and over again through the years? Obviously, the imagined moment had become so real that he'd excluded anything that would have ruined it.

He closed the door and drove off. He headed toward the farm, his mind racing faster than the car. What is wrong with you, Landry? Get a grip, pal.

He took a deep breath and slowed down to the speed limit. No use getting off on the wrong foot with the local gendarmes. Which reminded him of Annie's husband. Surely, he thought, if she weren't married he'd have had the nerve to stop and say hello. But you couldn't compromise a married woman that way. Not around here. And in Spencerville you didn't do lunch or have drinks after work.

So maybe he should drop a note to her sister. Maybe he'd phone her. Maybe a guy who'd handled combat and a shoot-out in East Berlin could handle a phone call to a woman he once loved. "Sure." In a few weeks, when I'm settled in. Make a note of that.

He went back to the farmhouse and spent the afternoon on the front porch with his two six-packs, watching each car that passed by.

Bob Aries filled the chief's car. Self-service didn't mean Cliff Baxter had to pump his own gas. They chatted. Aries said, "Hey, Chief, had a interesting guy in here this morning."

"You got any of them beef jerkies?"

"Sure do. Help yourself."

Cliff Baxter went into the convenience store and touched his hat to Mrs. Aries behind the counter. She watched him as he gathered up beef jerky, peanut butter crackers, salted nuts, and a few Hershey bars. About twelve dollars' worth all together, she figured.

He took an Orange Crush out of the refrigerator case, sauntered over to the register, and dumped it all on the counter. "What we got here, Mary?"

"I guess about two dollars should cover it," which was what she said every time.

He flipped a few singles on the counter as she bagged his items.

Bob Aries came in with a municipal charge form, and Cliff scribbled his name without looking at the gas total.

Aries said, "Appreciate the patronage, Chief."

Mary wasn't so sure of that. Men, she thought, had to make every business transaction into something like a bonding experience, with a little scamming thrown in. Bob overcharged the town for the gas, and Cliff Baxter fed his fat face for nearly free.

Cliff took his bag, and Bob Aries walked out with him. "Like I was saying, this guy comes in with this foreign car, Washington plates and all, and..."

"Look suspicious?"

"No, I'm sayin' he was from around here. Used to live here, now he's back looking for work, livin' out on his folks' farm. Don't get many who come back."

"Sure don't. Good riddance to 'em." Cliff got into his cruiser.

"Drivin' a Saab. What do they go for?"

"Well... let's see... maybe twenty, thirty, new."

"The guy did okay for himself."

"Nothin' okay about foreign cars, Bob." Cliff started to roll the window up, then stopped and asked, "You get his name?"

"Landry. Keith Landry."

Cliff Baxter looked at Aries. "What?"

Aries continued, "Folks had a farm down by Overton. You know them?"

Cliff sat silent a moment, then said, "Yeah... Keith Landry?"

"Yup."

"Moved back?"

"He said."

"Family?"

"Nope."

"What'd he look like?"

Bob shrugged. "I don't know. Regular guy."

"You'd make a hell of a cop. Fat? Thin? Bald? Dick growin' out of his head?"

"Thin. Tall guy, all his hair. Not bad-lookin', I guess. Why?"

"Oh, I thought maybe I'd keep an eye out for him. Welcome him home."

"Can't miss that car. He's out at his folks' place. Check him out if you want."

"I might do just that." Cliff pulled away and headed south toward Overton.

Cliff Baxter brooded over the events of that morning. "Don't know what got into her." Of course he knew exactly what had gotten into her: She hated him. He sort of accepted that, but he was still convinced that she also loved him. He loved her, so she had to love him. What really bothered him was that she'd gotten feisty, went and actually took one of his guns. She'd always had a smart mouth, but she'd never so much as thrown a dish at him. Now she was pumping buckshot over his head. "Got to be that time of the month. That's it. PMS. Pigheaded Monthly Shit."

He was sure he'd gotten the better of the argument, but that was true only if he discounted his bladder letting loose. He hadn't really evened the score on that one, so he tried to forget it happened. But he couldn't forget it. "That bitch."

He would have dwelled on this more, but he had a whole new problem to think about — Mr. Keith Landry, ex-boyfriend of Miss Annie Oakley.

He drove past the Landry farm and noted the black Saab in the gravel driveway. He noted, too, that there was a man on the porch, and he was certain that the man noticed the police car driving by.

Cliff used his mobile phone and called his desk sergeant. "Blake, it's me. Call Washington, D.C., Motor Vehicles, and get me whatever you can on a Keith Landry." He spelled it out and added, "Drives a black Saab 900. Can't tell the year and can't see the plate number. Get back to me ASAP." Cliff then dialed information. "Yeah, need a number for Landry, Keith Landry, County Road 28, new listing."

The information operator replied, "No listing for that name, sir."

Cliff hung up and called the post office. "This is Chief Baxter, put me through to the postmaster."

A few seconds later, the postmaster, Tim Hodge, came on the line and said, "Help you, Chief?"

"Yeah, Tim. Check and see if you got a new customer, name of Landry, RFD, from Washington. Yeah, D.C."

"Sure, hold on." A few minutes later, Hodge came back and said, "Yeah, one of the sorters saw a couple of bills or something with a forwarding sticker from D.C. Keith Landry."

"How about a missus on that sticker?"

"No, just him."

"This a temporary?"

"Looks like a permanent address change. Problem?"

"Nope. Used to be a vacant farmhouse, and somebody noticed activity there."

"Yeah, I remember the old folks, George and Alma. Moved to Florida. Who's this guy?"

"Son, I guess." Cliff thought a moment, then asked, "Did he take a P.O. box?"

"No, I'd have seen the money if he did."

"Yeah. Okay... hey, I'd like to take a look at what comes in for him."

There was a long pause, during which the postmaster figured out this wasn't a routine inquiry. Tim Hodge said, "Sorry, Chief. We been through this before. I need to see some kind of court order."

"Hell, Tim, I'm just talkin' about lookin' at envelopes, not openin' mail."

"Yeah... but... hey, if this is a bad guy, go to court..."

"I'm just askin' for a small favor, Tim, and when you need a favor, you know where to come. Fact is, you owe me one for your son-in-law's drivin' while totally fucked-up."

"Yeah... okay... you just want to see the envelopes when they're sortin'?.."

"Can't always do that. You make photocopies of his stuff, front and back, and I'll stop in now and then."

"Well..."

"And you keep this to yourself, and I'll do the same. And you give my regards to your daughter and her husband." Cliff hung up and continued to drive down the straight county road, oblivious to his surroundings, contemplating this turn of events. "Guy comes back, no phone yet, but wants his mail delivered. Why's he back?"

He put the cruiser on speed control and chewed on a beef jerky. Cliff Baxter remembered Keith Landry from high school, and what he remembered, he didn't like. He didn't know Landry well, at least not personally, but everyone knew Keith Landry. He was one of those most-likely-to-succeed guys, hotshot athlete, a bookworm, and popular enough so that guys like Cliff Baxter hated his guts.

Cliff remembered with some satisfaction that he'd jostled Landry in the halls a few times, and Landry never did a thing, except to say, "Excuse me," like it was his fault. Cliff thought Landry was a pussy, but a few of Cliff's friends had advised him to be careful with Landry. Without admitting it, Cliff knew they were right.

Cliff had been a year behind Landry in school, and he would have ignored the guy completely, except that Keith Landry was going out with Annie Prentis.

Cliff thought about this, about people like Landry in general who seemed to have all the right moves, who went out with the right girls, who made things look easy. And what was worse, Cliff thought, was that Landry was just a farmer's son, a guy who shoveled barnyard shit on weekends, a guy whose folks would come to Baxter Motors and trade in one shit car for a newer piece of shit and finance the difference. This was a guy who didn't have a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out of, and who was supposed to shovel shit and bust sod all his life, but who went on to college on a bunch of scholarships from the church, the Rotary, the VFW, and some state money that the taxpayers, like the Baxters, got hit for. And then the son-of-a-bitch turned his nose up at the people he left behind. "Fuckhead."

Cliff would have been glad to see the bastard leave, except that he left for college with Annie Prentis, and from what Cliff heard, they fucked up a storm at Bowling Green for four years before she dumped him.

Cliff suddenly slapped the dashboard hard. "Asshole!" The thought of this prick who'd once fucked his wife being back in town was more than he could handle. "Cocksucker!"

Cliff drove aimlessly for a while, trying to figure out his next move. For sure, he thought, this guy had to go — one way or the other. This was Cliff Baxter's town, and nobody, but nobody, in it gave him any shit — especially a guy who fucked his wife. "You're history, mister." Even if Landry kept to himself, Cliff was enraged at the mere thought of him being so close to his wife, close enough so that they could run into each other in town or at some social thing. "How about that? How about being at some wedding or something, and in walks this asshole who fucked my wife, and he comes over to say hello to her with a smile on his fucking face?" Cliff shook his head as if to get the image out of his mind. "No way. No fucking way."

He took a deep breath. "Goddamnit, he fucked my wife for four years, maybe five or six years, and the son-of-a-bitch shows up just like that, without a goddamn wife, sittin' on his fuckin' porch, not doin' shit..." He slammed the dashboard again. "Damn it!"

Cliff felt his heart beating rapidly, and his mouth was sticky. He took a deep breath and opened the Orange Crush, took a swig, and felt the acid rise in his stomach. He flung the can out the window. "Goddamnit! God damned..."

The radio crackled, and Sergeant Blake came over the speaker. "Chief, about that license plate info..."

"You want the whole fuckin' county to hear? Call on the damned phone."

"Yes, sir."

The phone rang, and Cliff said, "Shoot."

Sergeant Blake reported, "I faxed the Bureau of Motor Vehicles with the name Keith Landry, car make and model, and they got back to us with a negative."

"What the hell do you mean?"

"Well, they said no such person."

"Damn it, Blake, get the license plate number off the fuckin' car and get back to them with that."

"Where's the car?"

"Old Landry farm, County Road 28. I want all the shit on his driver's license, too, then I want you to call the local banks and see if he's opened an account, and get his Social Security number and credit crap, then go from there — Army records, arrest records, the whole fuckin' nine yards."

"Yes, sir."

Cliff hung up. After nearly thirty years of police work, he'd learned how to build a file from the ground up. The two detectives on his force kept the criminal files, which did not interest Cliff much. Cliff had his own files on nearly everyone in Spencer County who was important, or who interested him in some way.

Cliff was vaguely aware that keeping secret files on private citizens was somehow illegal, but he was from the old school, and what he learned in that school was that promotions and job security were best accomplished through intimidation and blackmail.

Actually, he'd learned that long before he joined the force; his father and his father's family were all successful bullies. And, to be truthful, the system hadn't corrupted him; he had almost single-handedly corrupted the system. But he couldn't have done it without the help of men who conveniently screwed up their personal and business lives — married men who had affairs, fathers whose sons got into trouble with the law, businessmen who needed a zoning variance or a tax abatement, politicians who needed to know something about their opponents, and so on. Cliff was always right there, sensing the signs of moral weakness, the little character flaws, the signals of financial and legal distress. Cliff was always there to help.

What the system lacked when he entered it was a broker, a central clearinghouse where a citizen could come to offer a favor for a favor, where a man could come to sell his soul.

From these humble beginnings, Cliff Baxter started keeping notes, which became files, which became gold.

Lately, however, a lot of people he didn't like were getting too involved in the system. Schoolteachers, preachers, housewives, even farmers. Already there was one woman on the city council, Gail Porter, a retired college professor, a nosy bitch, and an ex-commie. She got elected by a fluke, the guy running against her, Bobby Cole, getting himself caught in the men's room of the Toledo bus station. Cliff hadn't paid any attention to her until it was too late, but now he had a file on her thick as a lamb chop, and she'd be out on her ass in November. Women like that didn't appreciate the system, and Cliff knew if she stayed, there'd be more like her to follow.

The mayor was his cousin, the city council and county commissioners were men he knew, and every one of them had to run for election. But Cliff Baxter was appointed, and as far as he was concerned, he'd been appointed for life. The fact was, if he ever lost his job, he could think of about a hundred men and some women who'd go for his throat, so he had to hold on tight.

Cliff Baxter was not unaware that the world had changed and that the changes were coming across the borders of Spencer County and that they were dangerous to him. But he was pretty sure he could keep it all under control, especially since the county sheriff, Don Finney, was his mother's cousin. Don had only two deputies to patrol the whole county, so he and Cliff had an understanding that the Spencerville police could leave the city limits whenever they wanted, just as Cliff was doing now. It gave Cliff a lot more latitude in dealing with people who lived outside of town, like the Porter woman and her husband, and like Mr. Keith Landry.

So he'd keep a lid on things for a few more years, then, with thirty years in and his kids out of college, he could skip across the border into Michigan, where he had a hunting lodge. Meantime, he had to eat his enemies even when he wasn't hungry.

The part of him that was shark could smell blood in the water a mile away, but he smelled no blood on any of these new people, including Gail Porter. He'd shown her his file on her once, thinking he could get her in line, showed her all he knew about her left-wing activities at Antioch College, and some stuff about boyfriends that her husband wouldn't appreciate. But she told him to roll up the file, put a coat of grease on it, and shove it up his ass. Cliff had been more than pissed off, he'd been almost homicidal. If people weren't afraid, how was he going to keep them in line? This was a little scary.

The part of him that was wolf sensed danger before any other animal in his woods had an inkling of it. In the last few years, he'd noticed these new people sort of circling around, sizing him up like he was fair game instead of the other way around.

Then there was Annie. Little lady perfect who usually wouldn't say shit if she had a mouth full of it. Then all of a sudden, she gets the idea of checking up on him, then comes that close to blowing his head off. "What the hell's goin' on around here?"

He'd been working on these problems when this new thing came along. "Goddamnit! People after my ass, people after my job, and now my own wife tries to kill me, and some guy who used to fuck her shows up. Hey, God, what'd I do to deserve this shit?"

He wondered if Annie knew yet that her old boyfriend was back in town. Maybe that's why she tried to kill him. But that didn't make sense. She'd go to jail before she could fuck him. No, she didn't know yet, but she would, and he'd watch for it. It did occur to him that maybe she had no interest in Keith Landry, and he had no interest in her. Still, he didn't want this stiff cock around town.

He realized he couldn't watch both of them forever, but he'd watch for a while, and maybe catch them. If not, Landry was still going to get fucked, but not by Mrs. Baxter.

Cliff was a pro at lovers' lane busts, and in the old days, before kids started screwing in the houses of working parents or in motels out of the county, he'd grabbed a few every weekend in cars or abandoned barns. He had a sixth sense for knowing where they were and catching them naked or at least half-naked. This was the part of his tough job that he enjoyed, and if he thought about it, a night like that always ended with him going to one of his ladies' houses with big Johnson trying to bust out of his zipper. Sometimes he took Johnson home, and a couple of times Annie would comment that he must have been cruising lovers' lane. "Yeah, she's got a smart mouth." Too damned smart for her own good.

All this thinking about sex was getting him cranked up.

Cliff Baxter turned back toward town and drove into the south end, the part of town that was literally on the wrong side of the tracks. He called headquarters and said to Blake, "Takin' an hour. Beep if you need me. In fact, beep in an hour so I can get onta where I'm gonna be."

"Right, Chief."

Baxter pulled into the cracked concrete driveway of a wooden bungalow and used an electronic opener to raise the garage door. He parked the police cruiser inside the garage, got out, and hit the button to close the door.